mobile app ux design course

Mobile User Experience

Topics Covered

Mobile limitations and strengths
Essential usability principles and design patterns for mobile
Recognize good mobile design from bad mobile design
What users want from mobile sites vs. mobile apps
Mobile behaviors and activities
- Session duration
- Microsessions
- Use of mobile apps vs. mobile and responsive/adaptive websites
Navigation and search
- Web and app patterns
- Hamburger menus, tab bars, navigation bars, navigation hubs
- Hidden & combination navigation
- How to decide on the right navigation UI for mobile
- Secondary navigation: submenus, category landing pages, sequential menus, section menus
- Search-design patterns for mobile
Lists of items: hub-and-spoke vs. deck-of-cards
- When to use deck-of-cards navigation and horizontal swiping
- Carousels
- Lists vs. cards vs. grids
Workflow and path to content
- UI elements that do not translate well on mobile
- Button placement
- Self-sufficient design
- Guiding users through multistep processes
Form design
- Input-field guidelines
- Errors in forms
Mobile content
- Comprehension on mobile devices
- Making mobile content accessible and discoverable
- MiniIAs and tables of content for mobile
- Scannability
- False floors
- Incorporating ads in content
- Images and videos
- Tables for mobile

Free Material with Course Attendance

Nielsen Norman Group Mobile Website & Applications Usability report.

Format

The basis of the course is a lecture format with a few group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.
The course also includes:

Findings from our own usability studies
Videos from usability testing of people's behavior in response to a mobile design
Screenshots of mobile designs that work and don't work, and why
Opportunities to ask questions and get answers

UX Certification Credit

Participant Comments

"II loved how all of the examples and research are up to date. The instructor's knowledge of current trends and best practices is a real delight. I would highly recommend it."

Matthew Pointon, American Express

"A good mix of high level principles and detailed review of elements used for usability."

Paul Jurkovic, McLellan Group

"I enjoyed the tangible examples of good and bad UX on real apps on both Android and iOS, and tips on how to improve bad design. Amy was a very good speaker and communicated the content clearly and effectively. Good pacing and the right number of breaks and interactive experience."

Alex Moy, Enablon

"Excellent analysis through discussion and user testing videos throughout the topics. The videos help to highlight the hurdles users experience and the pitfalls the UIs cause."

Leah Novaes, IDEXX Laboratories, Inc.

"This course managed to find the perfect balance of holistic overview of mobile UX as well as covering all the details. It was very comprehensive and incredibly practical."

Justine Smith, ResMed

"I really appreciated how many screen shots and videos of users interacting with these applications were incorporated within the presentation. Really helpful when pointing out positives/negatives of apps."

Alexandria Silva, Zion & Zion

"Great topics and popular problems covered. Right amount of interactive discussions. Great materials and examples. I've enjoyed this day a lot!"

Nadia Udalova, Xebia Labs

"I really loved all of the research and video examples. The content was more than I've ever found online, which is good b/c that's why I came."

Jazmyn Latimer, Code for America

"This course is a solid knowledge and practice mixture in one. At the same place you gain what should be done, what is recommended, what people tend to do, why particular pattern is good or not useful. From beginner to ride-level to advanced designer they all have a take aways from Raluca's course."

Dominika Rudowicz

"If there's only ONE class you can take at the conference, THIS would be it!"

Ivy G., Portfolio Defense, San Francisco

"Great presentation, a very good way to reinforce content and collect interesting cases. A lot of evidences are supported by data, masterfully explained."

Andrea Snidero, AKQA, Milano, Italy

"I really liked the class and enjoyed the entire class. All the info was relevant to what I'm doing as a UX/UI designer. I enjoyed the team exercises, and like how Raluca engaged w/ everyone. She discussed all the issues & solutions to common problems you would run into. I highly recommend this course."

Lilly Wong, SF Federal Credit Union

"Excellent content, best-practices (with backing research) and delivery. Thanks, Raluca!"

Daniel Smith, Microsoft

"Excellent course covering a wide range of design patterns and recommendations for mobile design. All based on research. A must have for any person involved in mobile design on development."

Augusto Bianchi, Philip Morris International, Cracow

"The visual examples and the exercises were great. They helped break up the session well."

Saffron Davis, the Regional Municipality of York

"A really useful summary and reminder of the assembled best practices we refer to for design and development every day. Very rich in information!"

Matt Michaelson, Stable Kernel

"This course gave me a lot of knowledge on mobile UI. I feel like I can comfortably talk about it to anyone and sound like I know what I'm talking about. I feel like my skills as a designer just went throught a hugh upgrade."

Chrisian Bortey, Toronto

"Seemed to be a good mix of general info and relevant modern examples. Enjoyed it!"

Stefan Badchous, Philadelphia, PA

"The presenter was very good at fielding questions. She was very knowledgeable about a range of areas. Good course for recapping on basics and reviewing relevant issues we are currently debating. Good use of stats."

"This was an excellent balance of immediately practical techniques and patterns for mobile design, and explanations of key mobile design concepts. Raluca was clear, concise, entertaining, and extremely informative."

Rebecca Rosso, Century Business Solutions

"Great resource to back up UX design/recommendations to dev/product/leaders."

Kalila Sharti, Philadelphia, PA

"It really started me thinking about some new aspects of the work I do on a daily basis."

Dan Campbell, UX Designer

"Solid coverage of fundamental of mobile design, including comparison and contrasts to regular web design."

Rich Kunce, Cisco Systems

"Amy kept me engaged, excited and interested throughout the entire presentation. What I learned in just one day is invaluable!"

Emily Brannon, Washington, DC

"Good overview of recommended design patterns based on quantitative studies."

Francisco Giurfa, American Airlines

"Great examples, very up to date. This course covered many issues I'm currently working through in various designs."

Daniel St. Clair, Cinemark

"The piece on mobile behaviors and app-session durations was incredibly useful! Some of the information was applicable to games though not as much as I had hoped. Good amount of information on navigation. I loved the case studies."

"I got a better understanding of things on mobile that I use all the time, but can now identify. Learned actionable tips for how to improve the mobile experience."

Maggie McMahon, Des Moines, IA

"Raluca is very knowledgeable and very experienced so you always learn a lot on her classes."

"As a UX designer looking for mobile-specific learning, I thought this was a terrific course that helped me build better reasoning for how; why we craft design solutions for mobile experiences. I would highly recommend this for those eager to understand Mobile behaviors, patterns and best practices."

Becky Sroufe, Trinity Healthcare, Inc.

"Fantastic course. Wonderfully in-depth, useable info and real world applications and examples. Highly recommend."

Jessica H., Apero Creative Development, Canada

"A lot of nitty gritty details covered that helped affirm questions/previous knowledge."

Amelia Kordic, Nestle

"Course was excellent and group activities were helpful in reinforcing topics. I enjoyed them!"

David Auble, Orbis Education

"Thank you for an informative course — good to get an update on where we are on best practices for mobile users."

Stephen Ziuelton, Schwab

"Raluca is very knowledgeable and handles tough questions well! Learned alot and feel good about the course. Very valuable!"

Kate H., Booz Allen Hamilton

"Real-life examples of business cases and actual user studies on mobile were so great to have weaved throughout the curriculum."

Kristina Bell, Mark Travel

"The content is highly recommended to any designer, you will also revisit some standards that were defined years ago and have been updated (such as the touchable area of the screen)."

Serguei Orozco, Amazon, Seattle

"I enjoyed the content of this course very much. It was relevant for anyone who is starting to think of UX design for mobile, specifically to learn best practices and common features. Very practical and applicable for industry examples and real life clients and challenges. The breakout group exercises made it enjoyable to connect with others and work together. The pace was good. Rich content in the right amount of time. Thank you very much!"

Limassol Zok, McKinsey, New York

"I really enjoyed the exercises and lessons. I do well with examples and all the ones provided were so helpful. It was also so seamless (for a virtual presentation). Thank you so much for the good experience. Only a 20 minute break was a little rough, but overall, well done!"

Melissa Phy, ntuit

"The virtual UX conference went smoothly, thanks for organizing this so quickly and efficiently. Raluca was able to answer the clashing ideas that I have encountered in mobile design, her wisdom and hands-on experiences are so helpful."

Stephanie Chan, Hong Kong

"A great course highlighting the most important topics for designing mobile experiences. I learned a lot of new things and at the same time gained precious knowledge and insights on design questions I'm dealing with daily. The course did not only touch a huge variety of aspects and therefore gave a valuable overview, it was also packed with so much additional information, studies and material that I will be really happy to consult when digging deeper into certain topics."

Sabrina Peterer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland

"This course was enjoyable, even enlightening regarding a few practices and methodologies, and really did an excellent job at laying out the rules and toolset for engaging with UX provisions in the mobile field."

Will Morrison, Direct Line Group, United Kingdom

"Really nice course to have a general but also in depth approach to mobile design! Would recommend for anyone in this area :)"

Inês Avelar Silva, Portugal

"I had limited knowledge about mobile UX prior to this course. Now I feel way more comfortable designing for mobile, especially leveraging its strengths. Overall this course was very comprehensive."

Katie Oeschger, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

"Excelent quality of class. I absolutely recommned this course if you need to build up enough skills to tackle all kinds of challenges with solid solutions on mobile."

Constanza Schmidt, GoPro, San Mateo, California

"This is indeed a great session covering wide spectrum of Mobile Design and useful for almost everyone who is building solutions for Mobile which is ubiquitous these days. Really valuable and delighted to be part of this!
Raluca commands a solid breadth and depth of domain expertise. She is very sincere in terms of taking along the entire group and always backs up topic with relevant NN Group research which improves credibility a lot."

Amit Bakore, Synerzip, Pune, India

"I think it's a really great course. It's confirmed a lot of what I knew and gave me the knowledge to explain mobile design decisions with greater detail. The discussions around how to organize mobile navigation and the engagement of mobile users were particularly interesting and helpful. Highly recommend this course if looking to move to a mobile first design strategy."

Bob Burdekin, Allegis Group, Baltimore, MD, USA

"I would highly recommend this course. My mobile knowledge was limited to design systems prior to this. Raluca clearly explained numerous mobility patterns and features. I loved the real-world examples too to see them in practice."

Danielle Levin, Deloitte Digital, Washington, D.C. USA

"The content covered is useful in helping me design a mobile app. Especially on the placement of objects between Android and iOS."

Jun, Singapore

"I found the class very informative, it touched over all the main areas to know well prior to working on a real mobile site or app."

Dana T Yang, Ventera Corporation, United States

"The instructor was terrific! Many of us wished it was a two-day or even three-day course. She was knowledgeable, used current examples in her presentation, was engaging, read all of the questions/comments in the Zoom chat, and made the learning fun! Highly recommend!"

Lynn Newton, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Chattanooga

"It tackles issues relevant to mobile design, with useful real-world examples. Raluca spoke engagingly and with authority. She answered questions thoroughly and helpfully. The trivia quiz sessions were fun and a great way to test understanding."

"It's a comprehensive guide to features and methods to develop both sites and apps for mobile. I learnt a lot and well as discovering the proper names for features!"

Dasha Veysey, Zoocha Ltd, London, UK

"The material was very helpful and I feel like I learned the most I have ever learned at an NN/g course. However, and this is probably a reflection of my experience again, there are a lot of terms to know to be able to talk about the class concepts."

Alex, doxy.me, Decatur, GA (USA)

"Great for anyone interested in working with mobile design, but especially great for those who are actually working with it currently. For me as an app designer, I instantly got at least 10-15 concrete things that answered questions I had at my job for certain UI problems."

Andreas Andersson, Volvo Car Corporation, Gothenburg, Sweden

"The course was helpful for looking holistically at Mobile UX. I am walking away from this course as a better UX Designer knowing best practices back by research as well as being inspired with new ideas."

Lauren Hampton, Texas, U.S.A.

"Highly recommend: I loved the real-life examples of best practices to address mobile design challenges."

Jonathan Huffman, Atrium Health, Charlotte, NC, USA

"I feel like I've learned a lot about the mobile user experience, lots of really great information and Raluca was very knowledgeable."

Ashleigh West, Amica Mutual Insurance Company, North Smithfield, USA

"I wish I could make my entire department take this course."

Cheryl Paulson, CarMax

Instructor

Raluca Budiu

Raluca Budiu is Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group, where she consults for clients from a variety of industries and presents tutorials on mobile usability, designing interfaces for multiple devices, quantitative usability methods, cognitive psychology for designers, and principles of human-computer interaction. She also serves as editor for the articles published on NNgroup.com. Raluca coauthored the NN/g reports on tablet usability, mobile usability, iPad usability, and the usability of children's websites, as well as the book Mobile Usability. She holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.